MIDWEEK estimates had the crowd somewhere around 5,000. As the weekend approached, that number grew and around 7,000 eventually were inside Kingspan Breffni Park for the visit of Glasgow Warriors to play Ulster Rugby.
Mini-games were played between underage teams from the Enniskillen, Letterkenny, Cavan, Virginia and Monaghan clubs, and it was notable just how many from a GAA background came out to have a look at the brave new world of rugby in Breffni.
For those at the coalface, there was also a sense of wonder.
Ulster Head Coach Dan McFarland was glowing afterwards in the Breffni Gallery, a can of Heineken in front of him as he said, “I thought it was brilliant. From the moment we arrived, driving into the stadium and seeing the smiles on the faces.
“Waving, clapping us in, a choir from Cavan Rugby Club, it was brilliant. There was a real sense of occasion. It was a great day that they were here to enjoy. And we were as well.
“We want to take as much as we can from these pre-season games but a big part of today was the experience, coming to a Gaelic ground, a different part of the province and showing what we’re about.”
Within the team, it opened up a few conversations, he said. But then, he maintains the group culture is one of a healthy intellectual curiosity.
“In the group, we’ve covered Ulster’s history and the history of Northern Ireland in the last three or four years that I’ve been here,” he said.
“The guys are interested in the history of Northern Ireland. We’re a very diverse group. We have people from all over the rugby world, all over the island of Ireland, all communities from the island of Ireland.
“For us, rugby and our common goal for Ulster is a bond that’s really special, it cuts through a lot of the differences, whether you speak with an English accent or you’re from southern Ireland, or you originally come from Zimbabwe, it cuts through that and we’re very proud of that.”
He nods to his right when he says Zimbabwe, because sitting beside him is the Zimbabwean-born front-rower, Dave Ewers. There, his family were teachers and farmers in Mutare. But they were found themselves in the way of the Fast-Track Land Reform campaign of Robert Mugabe in the early ‘00s.
By the time he was 13, he and the family had to move back to his father’s people in Ivybridge. A boy with his size and strength was always going to be of use and his new school became an academy for Exeter Chiefs. He made his first appearance for them before he had even left school.
And here he was, making his ‘home’ debut for Ulster, opening the scoring with the first-ever try in Breffni Park.
“It was an awesome experience,” Ewers beams.
“To see the locals here, that probably haven’t had the experience of coming up the road to Belfast.
“I think it is massively important to us as a club in making that effort to come out to play to our best.
“As Dan said, we have looked into the history of the province and you can see the support for us here, it was special.
“To make a debut, away from home but at home, it was nice.”
It was a sort of homecoming for Glasgow’s assistant coach Nigel Carolan, as well. The Galwegian found himself as a sort of cultural attache for his players during the week when they were getting their heads around the novel fixture.
With his experience of playing for Connacht and his upbringing, he was looking forward to the weekend.
“Actually, the players were quite excited about it. They were going somewhere different and there were a lot of questions during the week, about the pitch, and I had to explain that the pitch was nearly double the size,” he laughs.
“Then I told them about the tradition and how it is a real honour to play on this pitch. So they were really excited and when they came on the bus they got some reception. It’s an impressive stadium and if you had this in rugby you would be happy with it.”
The pitch dimensions were always going to be a puzzle however.
“I think we struggled with kicking to touch,” explains Carolan.
“We missed three or four of them today. Normally when you see a rugby pitch you see the boundary and take your mark off that.
“So it can play with your peripheral vision a bit. It felt spacious out there. Maybe the game of rugby didn’t reflect that!”
Up in front of the press box was Cavan GAA President, Tom Lynch. In the ‘60s, he was an athletic midfielder and won four Ulster senior football Championships.
“I played a bit of rugby when I was in Naas years ago,” Lynch said. “But I used to go to all the International matches. I loved the team of the ‘80s, Tony Ward and so on.
“I was in Lansdowne Road the famous day England came over, when no other team would come over, in 1973.
“It’s fantastic for Breffni, to have it here. It’s great for sport in general. The game itself is a friendly, it’s pre-season, they are only getting used to the season ahead so it’s understandable. I wouldn’t be judging anything on that, but the occasion itself is just fantastic.”